“Stories Told in a Lost Tongue”: a poetic journey through generations
A story of immigration and assimilation spanning three generations, Stories Told in a Lost Tongue is an exploration of heritage and healing found in everyday rituals through poetry. There is a teller of fortunes, a monk who travels with a donkey, and the tastes and smells at the kitchen table as the alchemy of cooking raises memories of those who were loved. Stories Told in a Lost Tongue is Elaine Harootunian Reardon’s third book of poetry, an exploration of heritage and healing.
“Elaine Harootunian Reardon’s quiet words speak to the immense longing for peace and place that resonates in every human heart. She reminds us through deftly, gently constructed verse that our lives are the continuum of the ones who brought us here, that this is who we are, and that we best go forward in recognition of the love, courage and devotion of those who went before. This is poetry in its finest sense—writing that casts the simple actions of our daily lives with an understanding of our deepest collective truths. This is a volume that should be read, and reread often, to remind us of how we came to be where we are, and why this remembrance matters.” — Greg Fields, author, Through the Waters and the Wild; winner, 2022 Independent Press Award for Literary Fiction
“Elaine Harootunian Reardon’s memory-infused chapbook, Stories Told in a Lost Tongue , is a feast for the senses, a palpable reminder that the past still sits at our kitchen table. Through ritual intimacies like rolling phyllo and crushing walnuts to make Gram’s paklava, Reardon invites us to experience the intoxicating tastes that resurrect family. Haunted by the 1915-1917 Armenian Genocide (‘fathers dragged from homes’), these poems also hold space for the collective pains, dreams and hybrid voices of all second and third-generation immigrants. Each poem in this wondrous collection is an alchemical prayer, transforming the inheritance of genocide and migration into the spun gold of cooking and storytelling and intergenerational love. Swirling with savory flavors and alive with voices of the dead, Reardon’s stovetops and herb gardens ultimately serve up comfort and hope: each meticulously crafted poem offers ‘a newly hatched bird’ as we wait expectantly for ‘bits of sweetness to fall.’ These poems are a reminder of our cravings for home, dreams of reclaiming lost languages and holding them in our mouths now, and our insatiable hunger for poetry this alive.” — Casey Jarrin, Ph.D., poet and educator
Elaine Harootunian Reardon is a storyteller telling the collective stories of our journeys and how we heal. These poems, each a short story, are drawn from her multigenerational family home in Boston where she was raised, from Kharpet, Venice and the Vatican, places on her family’s journey. Harootunian Reardon is the author of two previous chapbooks, The Heart is a Nursery for Hope (2016) and Look Behind You (2019). She has won several awards and has been published in various journals and anthologies in the United States and Europe.
The poetry collection was published by Finishing Line Press in September 2024. Support IALA’s programming by purchasing it on their online bookstore powered by Bookshop.
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